


So Far From Where We Started

by abvj



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Post Episode: s06e09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25997020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: She traces her fingers over the edge ofThe Art and Artistry of Alpine Skiingand wants for things so impossible.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	So Far From Where We Started

**Author's Note:**

> Posted for archival purposes and also because my quarantine re-watch is coming to an end and I am feeling nostalgic. Written post _Impact Winter_ so obviously spoilers abound. Originally written circa 2010. Edits, mistakes are my own. Characters sadly are not.

Pencils, pens, her chipped coffee mug with a fading cartoon on it.

Donna is packing, amazed that she can fit the past six years of her life into a small copier paper box. A stapler. An old picture from the campaign she found buried in the back of her drawer. It is disheartening, _really_ , to look at Josh and Sam’s grins bursting with idealism and her own, bright and hopeful. 

Her thumb fidgets with the fraying edge and she cannot help but wish she knew then what she knows now.

Years spent tiptoeing that invisible line. The one with Josh, always needing and she, ready and willing to please him at any cost. The one she stumbled over again and again, losing so much of herself without even realizing. Now, Donna feels too tired to still be so young, too far from the person she once was to recognize the face staring back at her in the mirror most mornings.

Hours later, a glass of scotch in hand with the TV on mute and she traces her fingers over the edge of _The Art and Artistry of Alpine Skiing,_ and wants for things so impossible.

It lands in the box somewhere between the mug and pictures. It is a fruitless attempt at forgetting.

A sigh passes her lips, heavy with wistfulness and longing.

Donna never knew new beginnings could taste so bitter.


End file.
